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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; John K. Wilson</title>
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		<title>Reforming Our Universities</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/john-k-wilson/reforming-our-universities-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=reforming-our-universities-2</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/john-k-wilson/reforming-our-universities-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Dec 2010 04:05:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[John K. Wilson]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[An interview with David Horowitz about his new book chronicling his campaign for an Academic Bill of Rights.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/reforming-universities1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-77874" title="reforming-universities" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/reforming-universities1.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="540" /></a></p>
<p><strong>[This interview is reprinted from <a href="http://collegefreedom.blogspot.com/2010/11/interview-with-david-horowitz.html?showComment=1290976151142">CollegeFreedom.org</a>.]</strong></p>
<p>I (JKW) interviewed David Horowitz (DH) via email about his new book,  &#8220;Reforming Our Universities&#8221; for the Fall 2010 issue of Illinois  Academe. Below is the full, unedited text. In the comment section, I  will post my response to what Horowitz said, and invite him to respond.<strong> </strong></p>
<div><strong>John K. Wilson:</strong> In your new campaign to “Adopt A Dissenting Book,”  you urge students, “If your professor refuses to grant your request,  appeal to the next higher authority, which would be the Department  Chair, and after that the Dean of Students. If you are unsuccessful with  this appeal, then take the request to the university administration  beginning with the Provost or President, then the Board of Trustees.”  What power do you think that administrators or trustees should have to  order faculty to add books to (or subtract other books from) a course?</div>
<p><em> </em><br />
<strong>David Horowitz:</strong> I don&#8217;t think that administrators or trustees should  have direct power over faculty in the selection of books in the  classroom. The point of this exercise is to find people within the  academic community who will encourage recalcitrant faculty to do the  right thing, the liberal thing by providing students with texts that  reflect more than one perspective on controversial matters so they can  draw their own conclusions.</p>
<p>I would like to see an office of academic standards created by the  administration with a review board whose majority would be faculty with  representation from the administration and student body. The standards  should be set by faculty. It’s important that they be written and made  public within the university community. A grievance procedure should be  provided for students or faculty members feel they are not being  observed. A review committee composed of a faculty majority should then  examine complaints and this board should be empowered to make  recommendations in a manner suited to the requirements of academic  freedom.</p>
<p><em><strong>JKW:</strong> It&#8217;s clear from your book that you think the documentary “An  Inconvenient Truth” should be banned from all social science courses in  the entire country, and only allowed in environmental studies if  critical views of the documentary to oppose it are included. What  punishment do you think should be imposed on a professor who illicitly  shows the documentary?</em><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>DH: </strong>I said no such thing, nor have ever suggested anything like it. I  have never called for the banning of any book or reference material from  any course nor would I. I believe that academic standards and academic  freedom principles require that students be provided with materials that  will allow them to think for themselves. Consequently a controversial  film such as &#8220;An Inconvenient Truth&#8221; should be accompanied by critical  materials that provide students with the means to compare claims and  evidence and make up their own minds. I think this is particularly true  when the film is shown in social science courses whose instructors are  not professionally qualified to evaluate climatological claims. This is  probably where your misunderstanding of my intentions originates. I have  never suggested any “punishments” for any teachers. In the only  specific case I have been involved in regarding an infringement of  academic freedom by a professor I endorsed without reservation the  course of action taken by the Dean (in this case of Penn State’s College  of Liberal Arts and Sciences) who was a faculty member herself. I have  described this case and its result at length in my book.</p>
<p><em><strong>JKW: </strong>You write, “I had a talk delayed for twenty minutes by  demonstrators at the University of Chicago and had to deliver my speech  while a large undergraduate stood in the middle of the room with her  back to me in protest (she was not removed by the Dean and police  officers present because she was black, and they feared adverse  publicity).”(10) Why would a person standing in silent protest prevent  you from speaking, and how do you know that the university refused to  remove her because she was black?<br />
</em><br />
<strong>DH:</strong> I did not say that I was prevented from speaking. I said my talk was  delayed &#8212; which it was &#8212; until a group of demonstrators (with the  exception of this one student) were persuaded to sit down. The twenty  minutes were taken up by a university provost (or perhaps its was a  dean) attempting to persuade the demonstrators to allow me talk. The  lone remaining protester did not prevent me from speaking, nor did I say  she did. I knew the campus police were deterred by the fact that she  was black because I asked them why they had not enforced university  rules and removed her and they told me of a recent similar incident  which had resulted in a photograph in the campus paper, The Daily  Maroon, with a caption that referred to them as the campus  &#8220;gestapo.&#8221; Obviously it’s not good pr for a campus authority to be  portrayed as a Gestapo oppressing a minority.<em> </em></p>
<p><em><strong>JKW: </strong>You write, “The legislative resolutions I had sought were merely  instrumental—a way of getting universities to focus on the problem and  take steps towards a solution. It was never my intention to seek  government management of universities, as my opponents claimed (and  continue to claim).”(72) Yet the Students for Academic Freedom Handbook  currently on your website notes that legislators might pass the Academic  Bill of Rights as a state law “imposing penalties for non-compliance”  and declares, “you and your SAF organization need to be ready to support  and assist legislators in their efforts.” Aren&#8217;t you expressing support  for government management of universities?</em></p>
<p><strong>DH: </strong>Although the fact remains and the record will show that I have never  supported legislative control of university curricula or government  penalties for non-compliance with the Academic Bill of Rights, you have  certainly embarrassed me with this one. I had never read those sentences  before and no one before you ever brought them to my attention or  referred to them in a critique of my efforts. They do not appear in any  of the previous attacks on my campaign and if they had I would have  removed them from this particular document at the time. I have already  done so now, having been alerted by your comment. I apologize for this  oversight, but since you are the only person who has ever raised it, I  cannot think the sentences have resulted in any damage, particularly  since I have said so much to the contrary since the beginning of my  campaign. This lapse has been generally overlooked.</p>
<p>The handbook you mention was not written by me and does not list me as  one of the authors. I did write a guide for our students which is listed  on our website as “Mission and Strategy” and <a href="http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/documents/1917/pamphlet.html">can be found here</a>.  Section 4 of this document is titled: “To Secure the Adoption of &#8220;The  Academic Bill of Rights&#8221; as University Policy” This reflects the  unwavering aim of my academic freedom campaign which has been to make  academic rights for students university policy. I have never said that  the wording of the Academic Bill of Rights is the only wording of an  academic freedom policy that would be acceptable to me. I have said yes  on each and every occasion where university officials have asked us to  withdraw our legislation if they would put their own version in place. I  cannot see how I could be any clearer about my intentions. The phrase  you single out does not reflect anything that I have written or said in  the seven years of my campaign. I have never sponsored legislative  measures that would be statutory or include penalties, and never  supported such an idea. I have never supported the idea that government  should manage universities. It is an idea that I find both dangerous and  absurd. I have from the beginning of my campaign and in all my public  statements said very clearly that I believe universities themselves  should establish academic freedom standards for students where they do  not already exist &#8212; which today is everywhere in the university system  except for the public universities in Ohio and Pennsylvania that our  campaign has directly affected.</p>
<p><em><strong>JKW: </strong>You recount your conversation with Elizabeth Hoffman, president  of the University of Colorado: “I was quick to point out that I was not  asking her to hire conservative faculty. I said the university could  insulate itself from an attack by&#8230;bringing conservative academics to  campus as visiting professors.”(67) Isn&#8217;t hiring conservatives as  visiting professors precisely a demand to hire conservative faculty?</em></p>
<p><strong>DH:</strong> Hardly. A visiting professor is a visiting professor. He or she is  brought to a university to provide a fresh or unrepresented perspective  or experience, and is not brought in as a permanent member of the  faculty. That’s the difference. Aren’t you and other members of the AAUP  – as self-professed “liberals” – even slightly embarrassed by the fact  that university faculties in the liberal arts have become so monolithic  in recent decades? That most students go through four years of a  university education without ever encountering a conservative adult? How  do you think faculties got that way? In a fit of absent-mindedness?</p>
<p><em><strong>JKW: </strong>You also celebrate Hoffman being “fired” because she failed to  get rid of Ward Churchill quickly enough as “an important message to  university administrators.”(115) This isn&#8217;t actually true (Hoffman  resigned), but why would you support the firing of presidents who refuse  to immediately purge left-wing faculty?</em></p>
<p><strong>DH: </strong>I have never called for the purging of leftwing professors, although  this is a frequently deployed AAUP slander. I publicly defended Ward  Churchill and UC Irvine Law School dean Erwin Chereminsky when efforts  were made to dismiss them for their extreme leftwing political views. I  would never support the firing of a professor or the firing of a  president for refusing to purge faculty for their political views. Where  did you get such an idea? I did not ask Elizabeth Hoffman to get rid of  Ward Churchill, either before or after the fracas over his Internet  article.</p>
<p>Not did I ever celebrate Hoffman’s departure from the University of  Colorado. I suggested that if she had followed my advice and found ways  to encourage intellectual diversity at her campus (by methods short of  hiring faculty for their political views) she would have been in a  better position to defend herself from public attacks when the Churchill  scandal broke. I never said I supported such attacks. The message her  dismissal sent was that having an intellectually diverse academic  community would insulate universities against such attacks.</p>
<p>You are correct in pointing out that she wasn’t formally “fired” (and I  accept that I should have made that clear in my text). Nonetheless, her  “resignation” was a mere formality. She was forced out. Hers was not a  voluntary departure.</p>
<p><em><strong>JKW: </strong>You claim that “Contracts had been signed which allowed  government officials to decide whom universities could hire, what  salaries they could pay, who they could admit as students to their  institutions, and even what kind of statements teachers could make in  the classroom.”(96) The footnote you offer for this statement is about  high school proficiency exams, and has nothing to do with higher  education (or anything you wrote). You also claim that “diversity  statutes” such as Title IX “gave large government bureaucracies power  over such matters as curriculum, course content, and faculty personnel  decisions.”(147) Since you offer no footnotes, I was curious to know in  what contracts or cases has Title IX or other statutes given the  Executive Branch control over college curricula, courses, or personnel  decisions?</em></p>
<p><strong>DH: </strong>C’mon. The diversity policies of the federal government and  diversity investigations conducted by the Department of Education have  had a profound effect on the hiring of faculty at universities and you  know it. Do I need to burden my text to provide chapter and verse of  specific cases to make this point? In fact I did give a horrifying  example in my text of the chilling impact of federal sexual harassment  statues on classroom discourse by noting that Alan Dershowitz had been  forced to tape his rape law lectures to protect himself from harassment  suits by over-zealous feminists and that one of his colleagues had  stopped teaching rape law all together for this very reason.</p>
<p><em><strong>JKW:</strong> You denounce AAUP president Cary Nelson as “politically correct”  because he changed his view of a poet after discovering some of her  anti-war poetry.(143) You seem to think that Nelson changed his view of  the poet solely because she opposed World War I, rather than because of  the quality of the newly discovered poetry. How do you know this?</em></p>
<p><strong>DH:</strong> I didn’t denounce Cary. I suggested that his attitude towards the  poet Sara Teasdale was dictated by political rather than literary  judgments. He said that he had regarded her as a “sentimental poet”  until he discovered she had written anti-war poems. Since he didn’t  explain how adopting an anti-war position was not sentimental or how the  texts of these poems were not sentimental I think the evidence speaks  for itself.</p>
<p><em><strong>JKW: </strong>You praise schools such as Temple and Ohio&#8217;s colleges for  adopting a variation of your Academic Bill of Rights to allow student  grievances. Can you name one example where any college has enforced any  of these new provisions to stop the kind of “indoctrination” you oppose?</em></p>
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